Global Justice Center Blog

This manual starts with a general background on the role of international law and how it can be used in a domestic context. It then touches on the concept of Customary International Law and some international forums for enforcing women’s rights when domestic efforts fail. We then look at some of the tools women are using – the laws – starting with the women’s rights treaty – the bill of rights for women – Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, followed by a brief discussion of other treaties with a bit of extra focus on the ICCPR. In addition to treaties, a number of other international legal tools have developed including, most recently, Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security. The manual then reviews two other forums for enforcing women’s rights—regional bodies and tribunals. It then discusses the role of constitutions and quotas in advancing rights. Finally we try to provide other resources for understanding and researching international law. We hope this guide will be the beginning of your use of international law to advance rights.

Photo by Peter R. Raymond
As a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, Janet Benshoof, President and Founder of the Global Justice Center, leads a student protest on Supreme Court 2007 decision to ban “partial-birth” abortions.

[NEW YORK, NY] The Global Justice Center, an NGO that advocates for women’s human rights through the rule of law, commends Prosecutor Monquth Al Faroon for including the charges of rape and sexual violence against the perpetrators of the Kurdish genocide in his closing arguments for the Al-Anfal trial in Baghdad. That the IHT Prosecutor identified these crimes, alongside other crimes such as torture, forced displacement and murder, is a significant step towards ending impunity for crimes of sexual violence committed under the Saddam Hussein regime.

The passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (SCR 1325) in 2000 was a legal milestone for women’s rights to equality and non-discrimination. For the first time the UN Security Council not only recognized the gender-biased impact of internal or country conflict, it also mandated that the UN itself and all member states erect and monitor enforceable protections from such gender-based violence. However, there is still an urgent need to address:

The lack of any systematic progress towards parity for women as decision-makers in UN sponsored and other peace negotiations;

The failure to recognize SCR 1325 as a binding international law, particularly, as applicable to transitional justice processes;

The total exclusion of women stakeholders from such pariah states as Burma who are forced to operate only in exile and because of their difficult legal status are prevented from travel and access to critical INGO and UN networking;

The discrimination against women survivors/victims of conflict from certain countries like Iraq where the politicized nature of the conflict has led to such actions as the de facto UN “blacklisting”, stopping any UN support to the war crimes tribunal or to women victims of gender crimes under the Saddam regime;

The absence of any penalties or sanctions for repeated violations of SCR 1325 or country funding conditions based on compliance in country action plans.